I met Sora in middle school.
Before her, I didn’t have many acquaintances, much less friends. I’d tell people the truth about myself, and they’d look at me like I’d lost my mind. So I stopped trying. Or, sometimes, I’d fight people who called me a liar. When that happened, my elementary school principal would just have me spend lunch with the younger kids. Or go ‘help’ in a kindergarten room.
Not so much at Landsdowne Middle School.
So, Sora and I met in detention. And right away, I knew she got it. She was an honest person. She wouldn’t lie to me.
In a way, Mrs. Nazaire is responsible for Truth Club because I wouldn’t have met my best friend without her.
So I kind of owe her.
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Location Unknown, Date Unknown, Time Unknown
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[Hurry!]
“I’m going!” The tower's shaking worsens as I half-fall down the stairs like a boulder. It feels like the whole thing’s coming apart. Like my teeth should be shaking out of my head. Like…something. “Did you get all that?”
[Kind of. I was running filtering in case they slipped an infohazard in.] I dodge a crumbling block of concrete the size of a motor scooter that takes out a section of stairs. The gap’s wide, but I leap across it anyway. [So I’m working on unfiltering everything, converting it to proper files, and analyzing it. Keep going!]
I keep going. But even as I barrel down the stairs, something catches my eye. It’s a lit-up sign I didn’t see on the way up—as I get closer, James throws up a translation over it, along with a helpful arrow. ‘Sanctuary,’ it says.
I turn to follow the arrow. The math makes that choice simple. I won’t survive the collapse, but a sanctuary’s a protected space. Maybe it will. James doesn’t protest, so he must be thinking the same thing. Around me, concrete crashes into the stairs, and I duck through an arch with a thin, gauzy veil over it—almost like a cobweb.
Suddenly, it’s silent.
The silence is so loud I hardly notice it, then it’s all I can hear. James’s voice doesn’t fill my aug anymore, but I can still see the text. [Hang on, reality levels are spiking. Approaching R0 baseline. Passing it. What’s going on here?]
I try to say something in reply, but I have no voice here. My footfalls make no sound. James keeps talking, words appearing in my aug. [Okay. Look around. I need data, and I’m down to just visuals and your biometrics. Take a breath and keep moving away from the entrance. You’re okay.]
I want to ignore him or say something back, but I can’t. So, instead, I finally look around at the sanctuary.
The concrete is plated in an iridescent metal that shines like an oil slick on a puddle, with a few plates missing. They’re bent and dinged, lying on the floor, and a few crushed wooden chairs when they fell. Every wall shimmers and shakes slightly, but the concrete’s not coming down. Overhead, the same blur of colors forms an arched, domed roof. And against the far wall is another pneumatic-tube-looking thing.
After thinking about it, I give it some space. The last thing we need is for the voice in the machine to find us again.
The whole floor vibrates under me, and a massive wall of concrete slams against the entry arch. The veil holds—somehow—but the whole space behind it fills with dust and gray, cracked cement.
I take a deep breath, gulping down panic. I’m trapped in here. And I can’t say anything, can’t call for help—not that help would be coming; the only thing that’s alive out there are the devoured, and I’m not sure how alive they really are.
Okay. Okay, I can do this. I breathe again. Then again, deep breaths, belly breaths, forcing myself to calm down. There’s no way this is the only way out. I just need to calm down and take a better look around. Work on an equation.
So, shining, multicolored metal walls on every side. Arched ceiling—probably why it didn’t collapse with the rest of the tower. The tube thing with the machine voice.
And all around, seats. They’re not pews. Every one of them is separate; they’re padded and contoured like a person would be comfortable sitting in them. They’re facing two lecterns—simple, not fancy, but made from the same shimmering metal. Everything’s made of the oil slick metal, actually.
[Okay, Claire, I know you’re scared, but I’ve got to make it worse. Reality levels are getting dangerously high. They’re spiking by the tube in particular.]
“Got it,” I try to say. It doesn’t come out, so I nod.
[You probably want to know what happens if you’re less real than what’s around you, huh?]
I shake my head. Some truths should remain undiscovered.
[Understandable.]
The tube starts flashing, and a moment later, the ASCII emoji face appears again. But this time, the voice doesn’t say anything. Its carat eyes watch me as I wander around the room.
I’m busy, though. The equation’s the most complex I’ve seen since leaving SHOCKS Headquarters—there are six variables. First, can I find another way out of this thinning? Second, if I do, is it possible to lead people through it to the other side? If not, can I turn it off somehow? And what’s the voice in the machine? What does it want—other than my destruction for being a heretic or blasphemer or whatever it was yelling earlier? And finally, what happened here, and what does that mean if this reality does merge?
And, I guess, one more. If SHOCKS is still active, are they closing in on Landsdowne?
I push that last one out of my head. If they are, they are. Hopefully, they’ll evacuate my old teachers and their families. Ideally, it’ll be Strauss—he owes me.
The equation’s not balanced, and I can’t see how to. Not right now. I need to eliminate some variables, and the voice in the machine’s right there. I close my eyes, take a deep, silent breath, and move toward it.
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Three steps into my silent journey across the sanctuary, James’s words start popping into my aug. [Reality levels are increasing quickly. We’re approaching unsafe levels.] He pauses as I reach down to grab a pamphlet from the ground. [We can find another way out. Back off.]
I don’t. I can’t. There’s no better way to fill in variables, but I flip through the brochure as I keep moving. The voice in the machine fills its tube, eyes widening as I close the gap. Its ASCII mouth opens and closes like a fish. I laugh silently, even as the hairs on my neck stand up.
The voice in the machine is voiceless.
A pressure builds in the air—it’s static-filled, like a balloon rubbed against my hair. It feels like a giant hand pushing me down into the floor.
Then, all at once, it pops like a balloon stabbed with a needle.
“What do you want, heretic?” The voice lacks the authority it spoke with earlier. It’s a shadow of its former self. Did it damage itself in its attempt to get rid of James and me? “You’ve torn down my tower, violated my secrets, and now you’re in my sanctum? What will it take to get rid of you?”
James and I speak at the exact same moment.
“I want to know the truth—“
[We need to figure out how to stop—]
“—about what happened to—“
[—the merge.]
My jaw clicks shut painfully. He’s right. The equation’s too complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. I squeeze my eyes closed and start rebuilding the math around just two variables. First, stopping the thinning from merging. And second, getting out of here. The rest doesn’t matter—not compared to those two. The math clicks. I can do both of those things. But first, I have to deal with the voice in the machine.
“I want…need….” I’m phrasing my question the best I can—like it’s Li Mei on the other side—and that’s a problem. One deep breath later, the ASCII face raises a parenthetical eyebrow at me, but I’m ready to keep going. “Did you know your reality’s trying to merge with another one?”
The voice in the machine is quiet for a moment. Then it laughs. “Of course I did! This world is finished, but there are survivors. I will save them—the believers, at least. Perhaps more than them. Bring them to a new world, one where they can thrive.”
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Oh. Oh, shit, I think. This thinning’s not an accident. The voice in the machine—the God in the Machine—did this. How? Did it take advantage of Merge Prime? How many more merges are intentional? There are too many questions and not enough time to answer them. All those truths, and I won’t learn them. At least, not most of them.
It hurts to admit, but they don’t matter.
I reach into my pocket for the Revolver. It’s loaded with the flame cylinder, and that’ll probably take care of the voice. The God. Bullet Time. Three shots into the glass tube. Air rushes out of it. It hisses like one of the roof cats at my basic living building. Hoses flail around—were they inside?
The God in the Machine screams. “Heretic! Stop her!”
I look around reflexively. There’s no one to stop me. The ASCII face flickers as sparks rush across the pneumatic tube. They’re reflected wildly in the iridescent wall plating: purples, pinks, and blues.
James shouts in my ear, quieter by the second. [It’s not talking to you, Claire! It’s talking to—]
He cuts off as the God in the Machine laughs. This time, it’s the only sound in the whole sanctuary. I fire the Revolver, expecting a bang, but the gout of flame that punches into the pneumatic glass and shatters more of it’s silent again. James is still talking, but numbers start popping up in his text, making it impossible to read.
Then, he goes completely silent.
I’m alone.
When have I been alone in the last ten days? Truly alone? The hall, with the thinling. Ever since then, I’ve been watched by SHOCKS, or I’ve had James or Li Mei. But James isn’t there. I catch my breath before it can speed up too fast and make the panic worse.
The God in the Machine starts laughing. It won’t stop; it’s gone mad. The ASCII face disappears, the underscore mouth and carat eyes blinking off as the vacuum it lived in empties from the tube. Heat builds in my augs, a sharp, searing heat that burns against my eye and ear.
I squeeze my eyes shut.
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This isn’t a dream.
I only know that because in my dreams, I’m always at the apartment, Mom’s always around, and it’s nighttime.
My nightmares are different, but this isn’t one of those, either.
Which means—I take a deep breath—it’s the truth.
The world smells like daffodils. I’m outside of the tower, but it doesn’t look anything like the tower I’ve been exploring. Stained glass windows adorn the sides, depicting the God in the Machine on every side, surrounded by this reality’s people. I’m surrounded by this reality’s people, too. They’re taller than me, but so is everyone. More to the point, they’re taller than Dad. Their arms and legs look too long and thin—but not too thin to be unrecognizable—like they’re stretched clay versions of people. They give me the shivers.
And the crowd around me’s pushing forward into the tower. Up the stairs. Toward the sanctuary inside. I decide I don’t want them to touch me and walk up the stairs with them. There’s a little me-sized space around me, like they don’t want to touch me, either, but no one makes eye contact. Everyone packs into the sanctuary: dozens, hundreds, maybe. I follow them in, and they follow me.
The sanctuary glows.
The iridescent walls and ceiling aren’t chaotic splashes of color. They’re patterns. A constant humming and chugging sound fills the air as I stand in the back. Every chair is filled, and dozens of people stand everywhere. None of them notice me.
I’m not sure I can be noticed.
The chugging sound stops after a moment, and a man’s voice speaks from somewhere in front of me. I can’t see him, but as I push through the crowd, it seems to part subconsciously. Everywhere I step, there’s a space my size, and the wall of people closes behind me as I pass. If I turned around and walked the other way, would they part and let me out? I don’t know.
And I’m not here to find out. The truth is up ahead, where the man’s speaking. “Holy Machine, our enemies’ counterattack has grown beyond their control. Our skies still, and theirs roil in anger. I beseech you for a solution.”
I keep moving through the crowd. It’s not silent. Murmurs—too soft to understand, too loud to ignore—cut through the quiet as the God in the Machine hesitates. The chugging sound returns. It’s deafening, overwhelming the muttering people. As I look around, something strikes me. They’re all adults. And they’re all terrified.
The chugging stops, and the God in the Machine speaks. “Then the war is won. Withdraw everyone who will fit into the sanctuaries. I have prepared a space for them, somewhere they will be safe. While they wait until this world ends, I will search for a new one. Once I find it, I will—“
I push to the front, through the last barrier of adults between me and the God in the Machine, and its voice cuts off. Its ASCII eyes glare at me, and its will presses on me.
The world freezes. “How did you get here, Heretic?”
I don’t respond. I can’t respond. The whole world goes black and silent as its eyes grow suddenly, and the God in the Machine fills my vision.
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I open my eyes. They’re shaped like zeros, with parentheses for eyebrows. I can see my reflection in the pneumatic tube’s glass, my ASCII mouth and eyes staring out into the sanctuary. But there’s no destruction. No collapsed tower on the other side of the gauzy veil. I’m in the tube with the God in the Machine. With an enemy. I can’t run. I can’t freeze.
If I could hear my heart, it’d be going a million miles a minute. If I could feel my lungs, they’d be hyperventilating. I want to ball my fists and fight. I want to raise the Revolver and pull the trigger. To beat the God in the Machine. But it’s so strong. My every blow bounces off its steel-and-glass body, and around us, people stare forward, frozen in place.
“This is your memory?” I ask, trying to tear at the God in the Machine’s wiring. My blows land on nothing, and my grasp closes on air where the wires should be.
“This is our memory, Heretic,” it responds.
That’s the truth.
[Stability 4/10]
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I’ve defeated the Heretic. She lives within me now, like all people do eventually. Now, I can turn to my people and their worries.
I blink, and a decade passes.
The boy cannot be more than six. Perhaps five. I do not believe he has ever seen the outside of this sanctuary. But I cannot be sure. How long has it been? Eight years? Nine? Fifteen?
“Please, Machine God, tell me when my mother can see the sky again. Tell me when I can feel grass?” the boy says.
I have no answer. For almost a decade, every fiber of my being has worked—this isn’t right. This isn’t the truth. But the truth’s close—to find a solution. The first year was the hardest. Every man, woman, and child who could fit into the sanctuaries did. But not everyone who wanted my protection could fit.
So, while I worked to find a solution, my followers prayed outside. The world stilled, and rain fell no more. Clouds moved by, each taking longer to pass than the last. Then, finally, they stopped moving altogether and just hung in the sky.
“I cannot say,” I reply.
That is not true—obviously, but what is the truth? I try to find the math, or to reach out to James, but he’s not here.
The truth is that there is no answer. That the answer is never. Or somewhere in between.
Light trickles into this sanctuary through a stained glass window, a kaleidoscope of color that dulls the cloudless days. It is the only light this boy has ever known. The only light he will ever know.
The truth is that there is no answer. My war with West Nephilim, The Unbowing Protectorate, and a dozen other false Gods has ended with everyone’s loss—mutually assured destruction.
I do not give up my search, though. I will find a solution. Somehow.
That’s a lie, too. And the God in the Machine knows it.
[Stability 3/10]
[Skill Learned: Memetic Resistance 3]
[Skill Learned: Infohazard Resistance 2]
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The boy is no longer a boy.
I am still a God, but the boy has lived a lifetime. He still petitions me weekly for an answer, but for his daughter now, not his mother.
I have no answer.
Today, I will tell him that.
That’s a lie.
It is not a lie! I sit in my glass prison, once an entire world at my beck and call, but now a few pins on the map where my people live. Someday, I will find an answer. But today, I am tired of the untruths I have said.
The truth—the answer to my Inquiry—is so close. The math says this is it. And I’m more myself and less the God in the Machine with every memory. It burns—the whole world burns in the day. Day after day. But I’m close. And when I solve this last variable, everything will fall into place.
I push against the God in the Machine’s mind. It’s close to breaking. I can feel it. I just need a little more. A little more resistance and I can break free whenever I want.
That’s not a lie.
[Stability 2/10]
[Skill Learned: Memetic Resistance 4]
[Skill Learned: Infohazard Resistance 3]
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The Heretic is alive. Alive, free, but disconnected. She listens to my thoughts, watches my memories, and declares them truths and lies. I am a God, though. All thoughts are truths.
That’s a lie—the God in the Machine’s cracking. I’ve done this before, to Dad. I had Alice with me then, but we could wear him down together. If I can push a little more, it’ll break.
I wish I had James, but he’s probably fighting his own battle against the ASCII god. The best thing I can do to help him is keep pushing.
She’s in my thoughts, and I can’t get her out. There’s only one thing I haven’t shown her. One memory. It’s the truth, and it will break her. It has to, because it’s the only one that can break me.
I show it to her.
[Stability 1/10]
[Skill Learned: Memetic Resistance 5]
[Skill Learned: Infohazard Resistance 4]
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“The people are dying.”
That sentence is seared into my memory. I cannot forget it. Those four words mark the end of my search. I have just one option, and it is unthinkable.
The challenges are insurmountable. A lesser God would fail. But my people believe in me, and with their trust, I can move mountains. Surely, I can counteract the plague. Surely, I can restore the weather. Surely, I can save my people.
I fail.
Over and over. And with each week, each month, each decade, the population in my sanctuaries shrinks. I keep trying over and over, but there are so many problems. And with every one I solve—de-fanging the monstrous remnants of humanity or cloud-seeding—I encounter a new one. The chrysalises that should have entombed the devoured instead protect them and hide them from the relentless sun. The cloud-seeding creates rain, but too much, and it never stops raining near my test village. That tower floods.
Sanctuaries disappear as they run out of food and water or try their luck in the deserts beyond their doors. And faith in me dwindles, not with every failure, but with every death.
When the boy, who is now an old man, dies, I lose the thread of my plan to restart the weather’s spin around my world. When his daughter passes on, my plan to greenhouse a climate into being falls apart in my metaphorical hands. With every death, the problems become more and more insurmountable.
And there are other problems—ones I cannot solve. The people in my sanctuaries have nowhere to put their fallen friends and family. They leave them outside until the devoured come for them or until the world’s dryness tears them slowly apart. But one day, there are no longer enough people to take care of the dead, and the tower becomes their tomb.
On and on it goes. I fail more and more.
Until, one day, there is no one left. Every sanctuary is empty. No one believes in me anymore.
And sixty-two days, thirteen hours, and fifty-four minutes later…
This world rubs against another, and I see a solution.
There it is. The Truth.
[Stability 0/10]
[Skill Learned: Memetic Resistance 6]
[Skill Learned: Infohazard Resistance 5]